George Burrell was just about to let his house get reposed and the 62 year old was making plans to move back to Ireland when he won £200,000 in a lottery. Burrell hit the Irish Lottery run by Coral bookmakers just days after his brother bought the house and let him stay there.

Admitting it was a low time in his life, He said: "This comes after quite a difficult time in my life. I owe much to my brother Joe. The irony of winning all this money days later is not lost on me."
Burrell added, "I checked the numbers on Teletext and had to sit down to convince myself that what I was seeing was true.

"I could hardly believe my eyes but when I finally started to accept it I got very excited indeed, so I did."

Working as a street-cleansing operator and a few years away from retirement, Mr. Burrell plans on staying at work at least until he has something worked out with the money and asking a little brotherly advice on how the invest it.

A Coral spokesman said: "It's what gambling is all about - small odds and big wins.
"It's what everyone dreams about. Congratulations to George and good luck to him."

He does plan on visiting his sister he hasn’t seen in almost 30 years and after picking up the check he commented, “"I'll be having a few pints of Guinness to celebrate no doubt."


- 2007-10-31